Your Local Station – Across The Nation!
By TV Cream
DO YOU have fond memories of a local or even national Non-BBC radio station that we haven't got listed here? Can you say a couple of words about the character of its output that doesn't just involve listing presenters and dates or waffling on about 'airchecks' (whatever they are exactly)?
If so, then please do exactly that in the comments below; even Radio Cream hasn't heard every station in existence, so this is where YOUR memories come in… and if they're good enough, you'll get a namecheck (and not an 'aircheck') in the eventual entry!
Related Items:faded car window stickers, impenetrable boasts about how 'the music sounds better right here', requests for "Jenny listening in Stockport there", some half-arsed 'shock jock' that about three people in your class were addicted to, the 'Love Zone'
Robert Minto
I remember listening to Radio Clyde when Richard Park was still there, before he became the boss at Capital Radio.
Another DJ, I enjoyed listening to was Tom Bell on Forth AM, 1548.
They were the days.
essex radio which i remember most for the mr wishmore windows and doors jingle song played constantly,so much so that my mum phoned up mr wishmore to obtain a vinyl record floppy of the song.
essex radios first song was wired for sound by cliff,thats when i knew radio 1 was for me and essex for my mum.
also remember timbo in first years of bbc essex and rushing home from school to listen to his jingles and also plugging star trekkin by the firm every day which i loved,ahh memories 🙂
also loved listening to ceaser the geezer at invicta under the bedclothes finishing at 1am.no wonder i didnt do well at school,i couldnt stay awake.
The station of chocie for me in my student days in Newcastle in the 1980's had to be Metro Radio, the original home of James Whale's Night Owls phone-in program and the genius that was Alan Robson – initially at the weekends with his rock show on a Saturday and the Bridges show on the Sunday, but later taking over from Alan Bessant after his stint as James Whale's replacement ended.
I've never found a radio station since that met my tastes as well as that station did…
Lee James Turnock
Northants 96.6 – the Hot FM!
WGMS – the World's Greatest Music Station (no hyperbole there, then).
KCBC – Kettering and Coventry Broadcasting Corporation.
Nick O. Teen
Just adding to Mike's post above: Metro Radio memories:
The great James Whale – Nightowls was essential listening in the late '70s (once Peely had finished, of course). It was often said that Mr Whale was the North-East's biggest cult – I said CULT! – and he's still going strong, on LBC 97.3 in London. I live a long way from Newcastle now, and Alan Robson is still doing Nightowls, though when I last listened in over the 'net, the subject under discussion was slang names for the penis. Dumbing down? Naaahh!
Bill Steel's Breakfast Show – featuring a voice who'd call out "Divven't be silly man!" in the middle of records (eg the end of the talky bit in Neil Sedaka's 'Oh Carol' when Neil says 'I will surely die'…);
Paddy Macdee – the type of radio DJ lampooned by Steve Wright's Dave Doubledecks character in the 80s..every 's' sound came out as 'sh', so you'd hear "that'sh a shuper shound, ishn't it?";
Jeff Brown – the original Saturday night rock show presenter, who introduced me to Motorhead, ELP, Thin Lizzy, and many more. As a 14-year-old, I visited the Metro studio, and met Jeff. He was the music librarian at Metro.
Glenn A
I remember Metro with great affection, particularly Alan Robson on Nightowls and also in the seventies they syndicated part of Kenny Everett's show from Capital Radio. It regularly wiped the floor with Radio Newcastle, which was dominated by Frank Wappat and his thirties records, and rivalled Radio 1 for most popular station in the North East.
Everyone in Northampton can sing the Mann Egerton car showrooms jingle (YES, YES YOU CAAAAAN).
Also Manchester in 1989 had the very groovy Sunrise Radio, with a 'personal problems' section hosted by the two younger gimps from 808 State.
We used to listen to James Whale when he was on Aire FM in Leeds in the 80's and ring in with various hilarious characters. (well we thought so!)
The Haj
I listened to Radio Clyde's medium wave service, the catchy named Clyde 2 (jingle – Clyde tooooo) during the summer months when I had a student job doing deliveries round Glasgow. Basically it was 50s, 60s and 70s records, which was quite good in a Heartbeat sort of way, but the main reason was the decent traffic reports, which you didn't get on other stations (yes, Radio Scotland, I'M looking at YOU).
I did some work experience in an office where the radio was always on Key 103. Quite good to listen to, I could always get the Top 10 At 10 after a couple of songs, even if the standard playlist was limited.
Later I used to listen to Smooth FM before it became more national. It's mix of soul / blues & current music was very good.
TrevL
Very interesting reading the Metro Radio posts. The Sunday night 'Bridges' slot ran from 11PM until the close down (remember that?) just after the 1AM news.
The whole idea of the show was to 'bridge' the gap between all of the other styles of music played. This would bring in many artists such as Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Earth and Fire, Tomita, to name just a few, and was a great platform for electronic music and 'Progressive Rock'.
Originally, the show was presented by John Coulson, but following an accident, which I believe involved a charity parachute jump, John ended up in hospital, and sadly, never returned to the show.
At that point Jeff Brown, who had been presenting the Saturday Night Rock Show, stepped in and took the reins.
Both the Saturday Night Rock Show, and Bridges became essential listening, especially for teens. Unfortunately a lot of us were quite dead on a Monday morning, due to the lateness of these shows.
The Saturday Night Rock Show hosted by Jeff Brown, included a specific Heavy Metal slot, which started off as the 'Hot and Heavy Half Hour'. This became so popular that it became the 'Hot and Heavy Hour', and I think could have taken over the entire 3 hour show, if allowed to.
AlexTheEngineer-Ipswich
Surprised to see no mention of Laser 558, Radio Caroline (which took over 558 for a bit after the MV Communicator had left, and started sounding a bit less like "your Dad's pirate station ;)" or (as your cover more recent times) the myriad of Band II (FM) pirates from the 1980s onwards.
In that time I lived in Reading (near West London) so could pick up a lot of the more powerful London pirates like LWR, Green Apple Radio (though that was nearer Slough); also moved back to SE London (my birthplace) briefly during early 90s and ended up myself being a DJ on a small pirate on the same block as the better known house/rave station Fantasy FM…
Moved to East Anglia in 2006 where since 2012 I help out the local community radio station ICR-FM which has a lot of former FM pirate DJs…
Glenn Aylett
CFM Radio in Cumbria in its 1993 to 1999 incarnation, they'd play anything from heavy metal to classical music( it was modelled on the original generation of ILR stations). However, highlight of the week was the Sunday phone in with the Reverend Mike Charlton, who used to tell boring or ranting callers to p!"3 off and had regulars such as Pippa The Stripper( a CB radio enthusiast and apparently former stripper), Gareth the Gob( Thatcherite loon who still pops up in local papers) and Jeremy from Carlisle( who had an opinion on eveything). Excellent stuff for its time, but like most other ILR stations went bland in the noughties.
My favourite station was Red Rose Radio 1982-1990 on 301metres medium wave 999kHz AM (one thousand on your dial) from a directional 850watt transmitter at Longton Marsh near Preston and 97.3Mhz VHF/FM stereo from a 2kW omnidirectional aerial at Winter Hill near Bolton. It started off 18h a day 6am-12midnight expanding to 19h a day 6am-1am then 20h a day 6am-2am before throwing down the gauntlet and embracing 24h operation altogether. It was a nice radio station with good presenters, nice local ads, and informative enjoyable news sports and feature programmes plus plenty of music and lots of good times.
When it became Red Rose Rock FM 97.4 and Red Rose Gold 999 AM it was the end of good local radio as Lancashire knew it-a bad way to go indeed.
I would never have sold the station to Transworld Communications and nor would I have floated Red Rose Radio on the stock market as a PLC either for greed and gluttony of money and investment, I would have kept it going as Red Rose Radio 301 and kept the staff on and pulled it out of the IBA's control.
BungoBilly
Another Metro Radio memory for me, on top of those already mentioned, was the football coverage. In my era, Graham Courtney (now Talksport) hosted, Charles Harrison commentated on Newcastle or Sunderland away games and Bob Crosby was reporting at either Roker Park or St James' Park.
I have memories of my older brother dragging me away from Roker Park just before full-time so we could beat the traffic and inevitably hearing Charles Harrison scream "Drama at Roker, Bob Crosby", who would then describe Sunderlad's injury time equaliser/winner that we had missed. Come to think of it, that proably didn't happen that often!
Charles Harrison gained some national press attention in the early 90s (I think) when his house was broken into while he was on air commentating on a Sunderland away game. It was even mentioned on 'Have I Got News for You', along with a witty Angus Deayton comment about Sunderland's awful away form!
And the Metro Sport theme tune was absoultely brilliant!
BBC Radio Newcastle in the eighties was everything Metro wasn't: pop records would be grudgingly played among parish pump gossip( Ramblers Assocation meetings seemed to be popular), Frank Wappat and his 78 records and religious programmes dominated weekends, and no one under 40 would go near the station because of this. Also Metro was on air for 24 hours a day in stereo, Newcastle was 12 hours a day in mono. I wasn't suprised when Metro used to have double the audience of Newcastle, half of them were probably escaping from Frank Wappat's Sounds of the 30s.
Joanne Gray
Radio Tees (later TFM after the switch from medium wave) was a big part of my early childhood in the 70s. This was several years before the spectacle of TVAM, so the Breakfast Show with "Me" Mark Page strained out of our battered old battery operated set that was held together with electricians tape. We were regaled with hilarious tales of Dennis of the Boro (Mr Page's fictional and rather thick mate) and a single was released of their version of Convoy, entitled "Dennis and his CB". A sad day when " Me" Mark Page got the gig at Radio One – on Teesside, he was a well-known and well-loved local celebrity; to Radio One bosses, colleagues and listeners, he was nothing special and his national radio career petered out rather quickly. I'd love to know what he's up to now as he was a big part of my childhood mornings.
XTRA AM in the West Midlands, the medium wave golden oldies station created when Mercia and BRMB became FM only and chart based. This was where I heard Noddy Holder start his radio career presenting seventies hits.
Also when Metro became Metro FM, its medium wave frequency became Great North Radio. Its main claim to fame for me was, while most other people in Whitley Bay were cheering on England in the 1990 World Cup semi final, I was sitting in the garden with my dad, a fellow non fan, listening to a rock and roll show on GNR.
My local station for a time was BBC Radio Carlisle, a poverty stricken outfit broadcasting 8 hours a day from two studios in an office block shared with the tax office and a driving test centre. Its main claim to fame was it discovered Richard Madeley, who spent his formative years discussing the price of sheep and doing OBs from the Cockermouth Show.
Radio Carlisle, Cumbria after 1982, has long since abandoned its broom cupboard and now broadcasts 18 hours a day from its swanky offices opposite Carlisle Castle. You can even walk into reception now and get a free car sticker and a photo of Val Armstrong, the station's best known presenter.
Mall, The
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